Children’s safeguarding trust ‘must improve’

THE Trust responsible for safeguarding vulnerable children in Sandwell still requires “significant improvement”, a new review has concluded.

The examination said staff turnover and “quality of practice” at Sandwell Children’s Trust (SCT) “remain a risk to safeguarding children and the quality of their outcomes”.

Concerns were raised about the ability to recruit and retain social workers in the borough.

The findings come at a time of increased scrutiny on children’s services teams following the horrific deaths of Arthur LabinjoHughes and Star Hobson.

The Trust came into focus as part of a wider audit review of Sandwell Council.

Children’s services were taken away from the council in 2018 due to poor performance, with the independent trust created and headed up by former Labour home secretary Jacqui Smith.

But improvements since then have not been as swift as hoped.

Auditors Grant Thornton said the trust had “struggled to move away from day-to-day firefighting and has not been able to invest in early intervention and prevention or improve and transform to the extent required by the council”.

It added: “Relationships between the council and SCT have on occasion been an ‘us and them’ culture with a lack of collaborative approach and joint accountability.”

They also raised concerns that social workers were under pressure because of high levels of children in its care, and said there were “significant recruitment and retention challenges”.

SCT said its average caseload rate had dropped to 17.3 per worker from 20.1 last year but still remained slightly above the national average. Grant Thornton noted there had been recent improvements to fostering services in Sandwell, which are now rated good, and it hoped this progress would be replicated across the children’s trust.

Sandwell Council interim chief executive Kim Bromley-Derry said: “My absolute priority going forward will be embedding sustainable, robust processes and improvements that the council can continue to build on in the months and years to come.”